Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-07-04
HOLDING THE ROPE.
DR.. TALNAGB'S DISCOURSE YESTERDAY
MORNING.
Paul in a BaSket-Ths Mob Altar the Apostle
Great Results That Hang On insignificant
CircumstanCes-Think Of Nothing
as insignificant.
Specinl Tsleornm 10 ne Reniser.

| SpeciG! Telegram 10 The Register.
MARTHA's VINEYARD, MASS July g.
Many hundreds of Brooklyn Tabernacle
people and their friends have made pill
grimage to this place. 1t is one point il
an excursion of six days, taking in New
port, Nantucket and this island The Rev
7. Dewitt Talmage, d. D., preached hers
this morning in the great eamp.meetine
Tabernacle. Thousands of people were
present from all parts of New England
The music was conducted by band.
DR.. Talmage's text was Through q
window in a basket was let down by the
wall. I'll, Cor. XII, :33. He said:
Sermons on Paul in Jail, Paul on Mar
Hill, Paul in the shipwreck, Paul before
the Sanhedrim, Paul before Felix are
plentiful, but in my text we have
PAUL IN 4 BASKET.
Damascus is city of white and glisten-
ing architecture, sometimes called "the
eye of the East" sometimes called "a
pearl surrounded by emeralds," at one
time distinguished for swords of the best
material called Damascus blades, and up,
holstery of richest fabric called damasks.
A horseman by the name of Saul, riding
towards this city, had been thrown from
the saddle. The horse had dropped under
fash from the sky, which at the same
time was so bright it blinded the rider for
many days, and, l think, so permanently
injured his eyesight that this defect OF
vision became the thorn in the flesh he
afterwards speaks of He started for Da
mascus TO butcher Christians, but after
that hard fall from his horse he was q
changed man and preached Christ in Da-
mascus till the CITY was shaken to founda-
ton.
The Mayor give authority for his arrest,
and the popular cry is: Kill him! Kill
him. The city is surrounded by high
wall, and the gates are watched by the
police lest the Cicilian preacher escape.
Many of the houses are built on the wall,
and their balconies projected clear over
and above the gardens outside. 1t was
customary to lower baskets out OF these
balconies and pull up fruits and flowers
from the gardens. To this day visitors at
the Monastery of Mount SIM are lifted and
let down in baskets. Detectives prOwled
around from house to house looking for
Paul, but his friends hid him, now in one
place, now in auOther. He is no coward,
as fifty incidents in his life demonstrate.
But he feels his work is not done yet, and
so he evades assassination.
rs THAT PREACHER HERE"
The foaming mob shout at one house door.
"ls that fanatic here" the police shout at
another house door. Sometimes on the
street incognitO he passes through crowd
of clenched fists and sometimes he secreteS
himself on the houSe-top. At last the
nturiated pOpulace get on the sure track OF
him. They have positive evidence that
! he is in the house Of one of the Christians,
the balcony of whose home reaches over
the wall. Here he is! Here he isn'
The vociferation aud blasphemy and howl
| ing of the pursuers are at the front door.
They break in. Fetch out that Cos pei
izer, and let us hang his head on the
CITY gate. Where is he?" The emergency
was terrible. Providentially there was a
GOOD stout basket in the house. Paul's
friends iasten q rope to the basket. Paul
steps into it. The basket is lifted to the
edge of the balcony on the wall, and then
| while Paul holds on to the rope with both
hand his friends lower away, carefully
and cautiously, slowly but surely, further
down and further down, until the
basket strikes the earth and the
apostle steps out and aioot, and alone starts
on that famous missionary tour, the story
of which has astonished earth and heaven.
An Appropriate entry in PauPs diary of
travels: Through window in basket
was let down by the wal"
Observe, first, on what slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened TO that lowering
basket never knew how much would de-
pend upon the strength of it. How II 1t
had been broken and the apostles life had
been dashed out? What would have be-
come of the Christian Church, All that
magnificent missionary work in Pamphilia,
Cappadocia, Galatia, Macedonia, would
never have been accomplished. All his
writings that make up so indispensable
and enchanting part Of the New Testa-
ment would never have been written.
THE STORY OF RESURRECTION
would never have been SO glorio Isly told
as he told it. That example of heroic and
triumphant endurance at Philippi, in the
Mediterranean EurOclydon, under tiagel-
lation and at his beheading would not
have kindied the courage of ten thousand
martyrdoms. But that rope holding that
basket, how much depended on it! So
again and again great results have hung
on what seemed slender circumstances.
Did ever any ship of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such an important
passenger as had once II boat OF leaves.
! from taffrail to stern only three or four
feet. the vessel made waterproof by coat
of bitumen, and floating on the Nile with
the infant lawgiver of the Jews on boardt
What if some crocodile should crunch It:
What if some of the cattle wading in for a
drink should sink it? Vessels of war
sometimes carry forty guns looking through
the port holes ready to open hattie. hut
that tiny craft on the Nile seems to be
armed with all the guns Of thunder that
bomharded Sinai at the law-giving. On
how fragile craft sailed how much of his,
torical importance!
The parsonage at EpwOrth, England, Is
on fire in the night, and the father rushed
through the hallway for the rescue of his
children. Seven children are out and safe
on the ground, but one remains in the con,
summing building. That one wakes, and
finding his bed on fire and the building
crumbling, comes to the window, and two
peasauts make ladder Of their bodies, one
peasant standing on the shoulder OF the
other, and down the human ladder the
bow descends Wesley, 1fyou would
krisw how much depended on that ladder
of peasants ask the millions of Methodist:
on both sides Of the sea. Ask their mis-
sion stations all round the world. Ash
their hundreds of thousands already as
cended to join their founder, who wouid
have perished but for the living stairs O.
peasants shoulders.
AN ENGLISH SHIP
stopped at Pitcairn Island, and right in tht
midst OF surrounding cannihalism and
soualor the passengers discovered Chris
| L.xohas and schnoll anC